david: from bloomberg world headquarters, i am david gura, and this is what we are watching. markets are adding green after the biggest weekly loss in february. we start in may with a traditional may headwinds. how should you play the market? and kim blackberry right to the ship. and this hour from the milken institute in los angeles. and the highest breed -- high-speed, the next wave of rules coming out for the derivative industry. one hour a with the close of trading, stocks are hampering -- hovering around session highs. julie: the s&p was down last , the last since you are a fifth, so seeing a bit of a bounce back. it is on lower volume.

all three major averages are higher, the nasdaq in particular is notable. it had its biggest turnaround over the course of trading today. let's look at the groups on the move, consumer discretionary has consistently been strong, consumer staples joining at the top of the pack. financials also participating. tech has been brought, everything except energy now higher in the s&p 500, and even energy has paired earlier declines. move,g at stocks on the one is apple. these shares are coming back to nearly unchanged, positively for the end of the day. if they fall, it will be the eighth straight session decline, longest losing streak right back to 1998. we will watch this closely because apple is so heavily weighted in the major averages. the other stock is amazon, those are rising near highs, not quite

there, but near highs of 3.5%. that is a record high. his like it could be in part because of war and of it praising jeff bezos -- warren buffett praising jeff bezos. and another dimension, oil and gold, energy stocks under pressure as oil falls below $45 a barrel, a rock -- iraq boosting exports. that is having this downward affect. gold a little changed at it was catching a little bit. weakeningthe dollar as well. julie: usually that would be more of a boost, but that is not the case today. the euro at the highest versus the dollar since last august, 115 over the u.s. dollar. if you look at the again, even , it isit is -- the yen

near an 18 month high. analysts look for more movement higher. take a look at bloomberg, the dollar-yen going back to the end of 2014, and the forecast is the lowest it has been. it implies we will continue to see a rally in the japanese yen, and there has been talk about this. mohammed had a piece about this earlier about how central banks efficacy is wearing off. we are seeing, might see a lot more volunteering -- volatility in the currency markets. david: let's get a check of the headlines. mark crumpton has more on the newsroom. mark: u.s. secretary of state john kerry says intense work is underway to try and restore the truth in syria, -- truce in syria, specifically aleppo. secretary kerry said the government and opposition have, in his words, contributed to the

chaos. john kerry: they need to go back to the table with the minute of cessation in place, appropriately. with these new mechanisms and the minute the humanitarian blockade is opened up. mark: secretary kerry the syrian government for releasing what he called a killing machine on its own people. michigan governor rick snyder requesting a meeting with president obama and the mayor of flint in hopes of discussing the water contamination crisis. governor snyder is drinking filtered flint water to demonstrate it is safe. president obama will visit on wednesday. the white house is there are no plans for the president to sample the cities drinking water during the visit. the judge has barred the city of louisville from removing a 70 foot tall confederate monument from the campus of the college. it is 121 years old and honored

kentucky people who died during the civil war. the hearing is scheduled thursday morning. the departure of the brussels airport is reopened since the deadly terrorist attack. suicide bombings killed 16 people. yet the airport should be back in 100% capacity by the middle of next month. global news 24 hours a day powered by 2400 journalists in more than 150 news bureaus around the world. back to you. david: let's go back to the milken institute will conference in los angeles. my colleague eric is standing by. thank you, once again, cliff, nice to see you. i can't resist but begin by talking about hedge funds. first of all, you are on a hedge fund anil today with neil chriss who is just year. days, sand several

low and warren buffett have been meeting up in the industry. what is your view? cliff: we started beating up on the industry 15 years ago. we wrote a piece -- i got yelled at every hedge fund manager. i was young once, i was young when i wrote this. it was called the hedge fund pledge, they are too correlated to markets. they move with the market is too much. and they charge too much. so they called me to yell at me, sorry, sorry. now i lean the other way to little bit. i still believe they are too correlated, they charge too much. but people are turning to negative. take warren buffett, he has a famous debt, hedge fund portfolio against him. he is winning, and he is smart. but that is whether the stock

market will go up. hedge funds don't hedge as much as i think they should, but they do hedge. they are half as long as the stock market. we have had a bull market for many years. if you compare hedge funds to the market, they will lose in a bull market. people should yell at them, they deserve it, they should hedge more, but yelling at them too much. erik: cliff, and he is saying -- if i't have as much what a catholic becoming a protestant. cliff: i like to be extreme. the criticism is still warranted. ,ne thing, hedge funds do a lot and is simpler than they let on. there is a merger, you know what they are doing. they followed the trend is strategy. we like a lot of these. they are good. but if you charge too much, -- erik: if i get your strength --

straight, people are beating up when it comes to returns. what about fees? cliff: they go together. i will never get an economic thing named after me, but it will be some version of the following if i do. there is no version that is large enough to make it bad. i think we can all believe or not believe, returns no one else can produce that are unique to you, if you can do that, and i will leave blank whether you can, it is worth there he much, perhaps even the hedge fund charge. carrying strategies, training strategies, that has worked, but it is not the same as alpha nobody can produce. it is conservative. hedge funds are in mix of those and which jack vogel legacy 40

effectively. four zero effectively. , i will betrue alpha a coward and run away from that one, and a lot of known strategies they are charging too much for. you declined to answer your own rhetorical question about whether alpha exists. have you seen it? cliff: i have seen after the fact, and there are managers dead on. i will not name names, choosing between friends. erik: in my exclusive. [laughter] cliff: i will say this. is only masked man identity output before trading costs and negative these after trading cross is true. we can't perform. hedge funds [indiscernible] there is a contingency of the market. i don't want to be mean, but

maybe it is individual traders, daytraders, mutual funds. they take this. but they can't do anything. if they charge too much, a ruin the idea. erik: so where do you stand on the point -- cliff: it hasn't been answered. erik: but i fast you again, you will still not answer it. where do you stand where mr. vogel was last week with the washout in the hedge fund industry? he described this as catastrophic. you are not quite though unkind. iiff: dan is super smart, and am a geek, but he is more about what is going on in specific durations. i called him over this. the trading talking about quantity. i don't like he was. he kind of explain what he meant . but he has windows into things i don't see. if he thinks things are

catastrophic at some place in strategy, i will not doubt him with a heartbeat. i look at the industry as a whole looking at what may be flawed entities. but the same the critics use. the research index. recent returns are mildly disappointing, but they are not a washout. where i was going. based on your statistical view, would you say that given the performance hedge funds have had, which was bad, not as dan vogel described it, would you see a future in performance, and your future performance better the recent historical times? cliff: maybe a straight answer, yes. i would that on the mean and revert to the mean. they have over performed recently. even rate even would be better than losing. so of course, yes. i still think the industry on net charges too much.

so i think the strategies not for everyone, and yes, there is some alpha out there. but for most of the industry, cannot have a huge amount of alpha. still don't have a blanket recommendation, get in, it will be better. it will be somewhat better, but you can't get it elsewhere. -- stopwant to charge on beta because people are confused about factor based investing or what is called a smart beta because of what is publicize between you and rob, your research affiliate. what is your view definestep back and smart beta. i don't like this term. i'd came to on it because everyone adopts a term, you need -- democracy is democratic. if everyone else says it, -- erik: you can't stick with the beta man. cliff: smart beta is actor-based

investing. i can't say it is good, you have bad or good factors. invest.w we when it comes along with labels, that annoys me. and then i cave. so i believe there is a good set of factors out there, expensive, momentum over time, safer more defensive stock, can outperform almost 100 years more aggressive counterparties. important, bonds, yield, very systematic. i am a believer. in general, whether or not i agree on some of these factors over the long-term instance, very big components of the value factor. erik: but you through everything else out with the bathwater. cliff: he thinks a lot of the others are data mining, getting more expensive.

i think the math does not back them up. 70 years of influence for a lot of these, they have not gotten more expensive. and trying to tie in the sectors. erik: that is the key. cliff: an extreme form of timing, i don't believe in this at all. it was never true. you should not do that the bank. -- you should get to that period. he thinks you can time it more than i think. so he is on the cheap side. i think, and i agree it is cheap. when i say value is cheap, look, you always trying to buy cheap and sell expensive. it is cheaper than normal, the difference is large. .usic -- you find more stocks we agree. it is still time. erik: let me ask you about this, since we are talking about value, the valuation of risk

assets across the spectrum. cliff: now we are looking value of the whole market. the value strategy where you can be over, under, long or short, 1000 stocks around the world, you can get fairly different returns on this. if you can only look at the market and say market timing, even if it is a useful tool over 100 years, it is much better to live with. it can be long for long periods. stocks are quite expensive, u.s. bonds are quite expensive in history. the portfolio of stocks and ,onds, have your money involved we think it is tied with the most expensive ever in history. it is kind of a statistical artifact. how expensive, more expensive than 85% ever. bonds are $10 more. how do you get to that, being 100? they are not at the same time.

that is a surprise. look at the tech level. stocks were widely more expensive. too many people shouting. that is dangerous. so this is expected. bombs are more expensive most of the time. they were dirt cheap in 2010. there was a place to hide. timer, there is a place to hide. now, there are neither bubble level types, the bubble should be something, i don't know the timing, but i am certain i am right. timing will go you, but i am certain i don't think either in that position, the whole portfolio is the worst ever. even that is not fast, but it needs a lower perspective concerns pursuing 10, 12 years. erik: thank you for spending time with me. he will be mixing it up with steve and others at the milton

institute here in beverly hills. back to you. soon, john chen is our guest. ♪

♪ david: you are watching bloomberg markets. we want to go back to the built-in institute. eric standing back with the ceo of blackberry. erik: thank you very much. how are you? john: good. erik: i have to start with the inevitable, because people rightly or wrongly continue to ask questions about your business and when you will, with new handsets and why you are still in this business, so why don't we start their?

john: first answer, there will be about, we are working on two phones. this fiscal year of mine. erik: the fiscal year ends? john: end of 2017 february. another reason we are in the phone business, first of all, we have a lot of customers that rely on us, and these are the customers, especially government and legal professional, medical fields and investment banking, these customers -- the same customers i need to position might software business with. so is important i give them and end solution and give them a saudis -- a choice. it is hard because it is blackberry. [speaking simultaneously] anybody, it could be

iphone, ipad, anything? john: my software and my harperbusiness is library -- and my hardware is blackberry. what you talked about the possibility of exiting the handset business if you can't make money. i have people say rightly or wrongly that you are pushing out of date. your giving yourself more time. went back and i said les and i made that statement, the first time i made that statement was september a year ago. so if people doing, how long will it takes, make money or not, i said a year. erik: so by september of this year -- john: i will know. it looks good. i'm going to segment recording. the reason i go, i want

investors to see -- erik: you want full transparency. so you know basically how your doing on that business. when you say it profitable, blackberry has grown larger than 40%. when you keep a handset business i could not generate a 40% gross margin? john: it depends, it is my connection to a lot of customers around the world. it has value beyond just the market. erik: how long before we see the next phone? john: i haven't said anything about win. erik: but you can paste in yourself. would you know in a year older something before the end of the summer? john: something late summer, early fall, maybe the first one, and then later in the year. erik: how will this be

different? john: you have got to wait. .rik: give us a sense you want people to have faith in your strategies. john: the two phones i have made comment, those two phones are secure android phones. erik: willie have a physical keyboard? john: the current idea is one of the touchscreen. erik: let me ask you a more macro question. are you not at all concerned about the future of the handset business in general and more --cifically back very blackberry's handset business if apple can no longer generate growth? john: yes, that is something -- erik: after 13 years? good that is a really question. i asked myself on a concept basis, and i mean that sincerely . i can make money, i really would survey critical niche market,

people really serious about security, professional productivity stuff. in the mosttinguish to secure android phone. i believe i can depend on something the government will use for a very long time. erik: so you believe in your business. what about the broader market? john: this is why you become a little more nichey, the broader market atmosphere does not change. i am not marketing to -- erik: apple's customers. if you can make this work, you are insulated to the kind of trend apple is experiencing. when you bet on them bouncing back? have entered a new secular faith in the mobile handset industry? john: it is hard to comment on competitors.

i think the macro industry, the price could come down. erik: you don't think it will go up? john: the chinese are very aggressive. so if you don't have any depreciation, that is going to be a problem. erik: if we get more acquisitions in the software basis -- john: we generate cash, we have cash balances, but in the immediate future -- we bought six companies in the -- john: we bought six companies in the past 18 months. so i might make some acquisitions. they are going to be more expand themittee solution on the iod world like trackers and cars. heidi to go to market strategies, serve more markets.

that may be interesting for us. outside of that, we are going to stay put for a while. erik: great to see you. the milken institute, john chen of blackberry. looking at distribution for his business. back to you. david: my colleague erik at the milken conference. still ahead, what is next when it comes to regulating high-frequency trading. we hear from tim bassett of the trading commission. ♪ which of the doubt six cents up. ♪

david: from bloomberg's world headquarters in midtown, manhattan, you are watching " bloomberg markets." let's check

on the headlines this afternoon. mark crumpton has more. senator bernie sanders is promising that the democratic will betial convention - contested. the vermont senator says that by the end of the primary next month the front runner, hillary clinton, won't have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination. he's planning on being able to flip some superdelegates who are supporting this is clinton. most public school students and this monday.ay off teachers staged the out to protest funding issues. union encouraged instructors to call out sick after the district said that it wouldn't have enough money to pay teachers the summer. in march emergency funding was made available to keep the district operating through the end of the school year. -- warns that puerto rico may need the u.s. government bailout if congress

doesn't act. he is calling on lawmakers to pass a bill that helps the island restructure its debt and what he calls a series of cascading defaults. in a letter to congress he wrote the congress must act quickly to resolve the outstanding issues on the proposed legislation to help puerto rico. his comments come as the island nation missed the deadline for a $422 million bond payment for its government development bank. the olympic flame is set to arrive in brazil, kicking off three months torch relay around the country that will end at the macarena stadium in august. the rio organizing committee will step off the plane from geneva tomorrow morning carrying the flame in a lantern. the president is to receive the lantern at the presidential palace, igniting the torch to begin its journey around the country. news, 24 hours per day, powered by our 24 -- 2400

journalists around the world. markets close in about 30 minutes. all the major indexes are up right now. abigail doolittle's live at the nasdaq marketplace. it is to rating nicely at this point after it fluctuated this morning and now appears to be on pace to snapped a seven-game losing streak. helping the nasdaq at this point are some of the big technology names, amazon and microsoft, with a bit of a recovery in biotech. moreeron is no higher by than 1%. one of the biggest drags on the nasdaq all day, apple shares are lower, though it has pared losses. nonetheless it is on pace for in a day losing streak. the longest since 1998. that sort of selling pressure a big shiftstrates in investors on the stock. especially around iphones. something pretty familiar to what happened to the stock over the last nine months as it's

traded up and down and investor views have changed around the iphone. the more than 10% drop comes as the company missed its march quarter estimates and guided belowuarter revenues down consensus. even so they are defending apple saying that the iphone business is healthy and that valuation creates an attractive risk reward. taking a look at the weekly chart do see the stock hitting against the buying support of the recent lows. it will be interested -- interesting to see if they hold full. are thereking again, any laggards today that stand out to you? abigail: one that has stood out all day throughout the trading on the, the biggest drag index at this point, flipping positions with apple from two to number one on the news that a chinese internet regulator is complianceng baidu's practices after a 21-year-old student died of a rare cancer researchng baidu to

treatments and hospitals. it appears the sellers are pushing it down into a trading range. you so much, abigail doolittle at the nasdaq. evolving technology means the regulatory committee needs to be just as adaptive. conversation from the milken institute in los angeles, it was asked if more market regulation is on the table in the foreseeable future. some people are saying repeal this, revealed. frank, but i don't big either of those is true. i think that we put it in place in our area, a very good framework for the regulation of over-the-counter derivatives. that's pretty much in place today. we've got a few places still to do. a lot of what we are doing is focusing on fine tuning in the areas of greatest risk and making sure that it doesn't burden commercial users too much we use these markets.

also international harmonization. we are also trying to look forward. not just back at what happened in the crisis but forward to concerns like cyber security, one of our biggest concerns today. the list of challenges that financial services will face in the future, is the number one? >> if you had to just name one, it probably is. i think that everyone is concerned about cyber security and it's a bit of an arms race in terms of giving up. but like you say, that's obvious. what's number two and number three? automated trading. from the standpoint mostly of what the potential is for disruption that we could cause. people to make sure that using automated trading strategy have good controls to make sure that there aren't aberrant algorithms causing problems. also, looking back at all of things we have done post of the financial crisis, looking at the

combined effect, making sure we have got it set right. as a regulator, how do you know when more is too much? >> you just have to look at how these things are affecting the market and what the market response is. markets evolve constantly. market structure changes. you just have to be always ready to take a look at that. but it's got to be a data-driven analysis area not just supposition. erik: is there anything you or the ctc has done in the post crisis environment where you see a need to dial it back? that it's more fine-tuning. there are a number of areas where we take an action, focusing on the areas of greatest risk without causing unintentional consequences. particularly for commercial firms who use these markets routinely. erik: time is running out for this administration. what more can you do well there is still time? like i got an ambitious agenda.

recently we finalized our rules on margin. that's very important. especially taking collateral for unclear swaps against leverage. that's a companion to requiring clearing for standardized swaps. those are probably the two most important things we have done. we also need to finish the capital rule. position limits are very important. erik: but you get them both done? >> i hope so. erik: you will? >> i will. and cyber security proposals require firms -- we're not trying to be prescriptive, we are saying that they have to engage in adequate testing. we're also again hoping to do something on automated trading this year. erik: there is a lot of concern over the amount of available liquidity in the cash market. particularly in high yield as you go lower grade. what's your perspective? you have of you.

i think that on the whole liquidity question, it's worth looking at. when we have we haven't seen dramatic effect to regulation. finn rough has done some studies on the fixed income market in the u.k.. they have done some studies where we work on one in connection with the treasury market. you have to look at it in the context of market structures changing. it is very different from the equity markets. these things are worth looking at. i have been concerned about some of the implications of what we have done in terms of clearing numbers and the ability to clear services. it's all worth looking at, it just needs to be data-driven. in theyou don't -- erik: withdrawal of the balance sheet, do you think it's had an impact? >> i'm sure it has. you've got to remember that we did those things for good reason. we had severe problems in the crisis due to the complexities

that are largest banks pose. we implemented those reforms to make the system more resilient. i think you got to balance that with potential effects. alsorms of liquidity it's a measure of how you are measuring it. what people complain about is their ability to do large transactions. still ahead, we will check out the options market and how they are handling today's action and a look at sectors on the way out. consumer discretionary's in the biggest sector. up just a little bit, four/100 of 1%. ♪

stocks higher for the first time in three days, putting the s&p 500 in its best day in three weeks. julie hyman is standing by with the options market. julie: one of the things i been talking about throughout the day, jim, is the piece on bloomberg view by mohamed el-erian where he talks about what we've seen in part because of the unpredictability of central banks and market reactions to central-bank activity. one of the things he said was that it's going to continue. this is not a phenomenon that's going away. i wanted to talk to you about it because it is a team you have spoken about frequently. although asset volatility is lacking in the u.s. stock market at the moment. jim: we actually talk about the

same thing in the note this morning, the point of the lake today and that we have talked about for several months is that it is an environment where the central bank is a prized that the doj provided it last week. this structurally elevated volatility across asset classes is likely to continue essentially indefinitely area looking at the relationship between broad cross hatches of volatility, they are highly correlated. the suggestion that you could have elevated currency volatility and see spot vick at the same time going to 11 or 10 with a transition into a low volatility environment is very likely. julie: we keep talking about this, it's been a consistent theme. what's going to change this? we would all be billionaires if we could figure out when to time it.

what are the potentials's out there that could cause these things to come back into alignment? lead withnd not to potential events. looking at volatility, for example, giving you this, we had suppressed volatility in the context of an elevated environment that went on for three months. we are just at about two months now. certainly longer in duration, but it's not anomalous where volatility has been repressed. what is the catalyst to drive it higher? i'm not sure, but i would argue that the window is effectively closing and an event will come along to trigger higher volatility. julie: ok, it might not be earnings season right now, but looking at the retailers we will start to hear from more and more of them. you are looking at gas in particular. which has been -- i don't want cap in it -- looking at particular. there has been a lot of negative

iniment and i guess -- gap particular. there has been a lot of sent -- negative sentiment. jim: that has turned around, with channel checks going back to march about promotional activity turned negative. retailers have been very promotional, number one, with commentary from company management being very cautious. we entered being constructive. that turned around a month ago. one that she is particularly cautious on his gap stores. she took down the first quarter for --. estimates. very emotional across their brands. there really is the potential for dislocation. it levelsk is now 2011 levels. we still think that there could be dislocations on earnings. julie: so, what do you do with it? jim: very simple. june, going out to the sector

reports, you buy 22 strike put out right $.20 -- $.70 for those. a good clean way to pay out right. if you are long stock, sell the 25 strike call and against that you are managing the risk-averse. julie: are these expensive? jim: relatively so. it has lifted sharply. much.ally paying up that julie: all right, jim. thank you so much. we will be watching those gap numbers when they come out. at some of for look the biggest stories in the news right now. goldman sachs received a settlement -- gave out a settlement with investors who claimed that they were misled. the judge allowed the settlement

in august to go forward, finding it fair, adequate, and reasonable. they claimed they acted properly gnc holdings claimed they are starting a strategic review that would start the sale of the company. --. they said they would change the capital structure and overhaul the operations. seaworld says that their killer whales will no longer kiss during performance. only emphasizing actions that the animals do in nature, such as communicating with each other and the hunt for food. they ceased breathing killer whales in march. business flash update. coming up, the close of trading is minutes away. here are the major averages with the dow down. 1%.s&p 500 is down 8/10 of the nasdaq is down almost 1%.

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david: this is "bloomberg markets." markets close in about 10 minutes. stocks in the session highs, in the green. julie: we are seeing the nasdaq with the dramatic turnaround today. bouncing back from last week's declines without a big macro catalyst. the only thing that you could say might be driving stocks higher today is the fact that manufacturing came in below estimates, pushing out some estimates for when the fed may raise rates. all major averages rising, the s&p 500 taken as an example of what we have seen today, a steady climb throughout the session. i want to go with some of the best and worst performers here. first of all, on the plus rough -- plus side, wynn resorts

showing a smaller drop than estimated. cisco beating estimates with oil and gasbot rising. the stock didn't really move but it is rising today. withn.com getting a boost powerful commentary from warren buffett over the weekend. on the downside, falling on the second day after reporting earnings and being downgraded by , falling on worse than estimated earnings or loss in this case. southwestern declining today as we see oil prices continuing to pull back. stocks arele that reaching their highs, even as we have got oil prices near the lows of the session. not seeing the correlation that we typically see, reporting an increase in exports. one of the things i want to look at on the bloomberg that i like to track is this correlation. 108, we are still seeing correlation at 0.9.

,his is directional correlation not about them having the same percentage moves, it's about the same direction in the last 120 days. we are still seeing that and a high level. notwithstanding today it doesn't seem that there is decreasing in the correlation trend. david:+++ digging into the broader market theme as we approach the close, let's start with manufacturing. last week all the news centered on the central bank meetings in.

the central bank looms large here. >> the dividing line between growth and contraction, just barely, but when you look at the markets today -- julie alluded to this -- sunday the market is like a giant puzzle and it's easy to put the piece -- the pieces together. today you have to kind of forces together. the dollar is dropping a lot today. the bloomberg dollar index is at the lowest it's been in about a year. reflexively that is sort of good for stocks, but it wasn't enough to turn it around. down on those production numbers, kind of a mystery there. first day of the month can sometimes just be a little awed. there can be moves that you cannot really put your finger on. looking at treasuries, treasuries and the dollar going into the version of the past, the dollar is weakening in the instinct us look at the manufacturing report being weak and thinking -- ok, the fed will continue to be dovish. treasuries on the other hand, bloomberg reporting that they have fixated on the crisis paid element and that was a little hot. inflation inmore the manufacturing sector than people were expecting. sort of like with the dollar weakening and treasury yields rising.

it's one of those days where it is all of the above. closeve the u.k. market for the may 1 holiday. some of those puzzle pieces just aren't you in on the table. david: apple, the earnings season continues. disappointment persists as well. michael: it's been mind-boggling. $90 million erased since the middle of april. it's been down for eight straight days. the longest strong best longest slump since 1990. obviously this is the biggest stock in the s&p 500. google is now kind of closing the gap with it and google might become the biggest stock in the index. surprising and very interesting thing that the market can rally like this today. as they continue to show weakness.

talking about amazon, those markets are soaring. big today rally. amazon is a part of that consumer discretionary group. it is the descriptor -- discretionary consumer group. partly amazon, partly win resorts. resorts. numbers out of macau were down, but not as much as expected. getting scuttled here, amazing in terms of size. interesting,as puerto rico, the falling, this major megadeal is falling apart. in the last couple of months no one was expecting this deal to

go through. not a big surprise there. makes you wonder about the m&a environment right now. megadeals, with a start second-guessing whether they can pull it off going forward? mike, thank you very much. our gadfly columnist. on the way out here, take a quick look at the major indexes. all in the green. the nasdaq is up, 8/10 of 1%. the s&p is up three quarters of 1%. the dow, up 6/10 of 1%. "would you miss" is coming up next. ♪

alix: we are moments away from the closing bell. joe: scarlet fu is on assignment. ♪

[closing bell] u.s. stocks bouncing back after posting their worst to climb since february. joe: the question is, "what'd you miss?" losing steamlar after manufacturing slowed last month. oil dropping nearly 3%. joe: aig is due to report first-quarter earnings in this hour. will they be able to return cash to investors to counter carl icahn's demand to rake of the company? bloomberg television gets a rare sitdown with neil ferguson. we begin with our market minutes. it was quite a rally today. it started off relatively slow, bu